Chimps top humans in numerical memory

KYOTO, Japan, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- A Japanese study has determined young chimpanzees have a surprising ability to remember numerals -- an ability superior to that of human adults.

"Here we show for the first time that young chimpanzees have an extraordinary working memory capability for numerical recollection -- better than that of human adults tested in the same apparatus, following the same procedure," said Tetsuro Matsuzawa of Kyoto University.

The researchers tested three pairs of mother and infant chimpanzees -- all of which had learned the ascending order of Arabic numerals from 1 to 9 -- against university students in a memory task of numerals.

The chimps and humans were briefly presented with various numerals on a touch-screen monitor. The numbers were then replaced with blank squares, and the test subjects had to remember which numeral appeared in which location and touch the squares in the appropriate order.

In general, the three young chimps performed better than their mothers. Likewise, adult humans were slower than all three young chimpanzees.

The researchers said the young chimps' superior numerical memory is "just a part of the very flexible intelligence of young chimpanzees."

The study appears in the journal Current Biology.